Saturday, October 03, 2009

The 2009 Harvest Moon — the full moon falling closest to the autumn equinox — did rise in front of the 10th tee around dusk tonight but it didn’t look anything like this. The picture above is a PhotoShopped composite of 3 different pictures I took and edited in order to present a more pleasing visual image. The moon shown is 300% larger than the original.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

The other night I was minding my own business taking a movie of the lunar crater Archimedes when someTHING flew right through my field of view. I ran predictions for several hundred known earth satellites and none were likely candidates.

What could it have been? It must have been a satellite, an aircraft would have appeared much larger. The time was 9:37 PM on September 27, 2009 in Pinehurst, NC. -- Dalton Hammond

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

I thought these were somewhat better than the usual stuff I receive in emails...DALTON HAMMOND

ONLY A TRUE GOLFER WILL UNDERSTAND THIS...Don't buy a putter until you've had a chance to throw it.

Never try to keep more than 300 separate thoughts in your mind during your swing.

To calculate the speed of a player's downswing, multiply the speed of his back-swing by his handicap; i.e., back-swing 20 mph, handicap 15, downswing = 300 mph.

When your shot has to carry over a water hazard, you can either hit one more club or two more balls.

If you're afraid a full shot might reach the green while the foursome ahead of you is still putting out, you have two options: you can immediately shank a lay-up or you can wait until the green is clear and top a ball halfway there.

The less skilled the player, the more likely he is to share his ideas about the golf swing.

No matter how bad you are playing, it is always possible to play worse.

The inevitable result of any golf lesson is the instant elimination of the one critical unconscious motion that allowed you to compensate for all of your many other errors.

If it ain't broke, try changing your grip.

Everyone replaces his divot after a perfect approach shot.

A golf match is a test of your skill against your opponents' luck.

It is surprisingly easy to hole a fifty foot putt .. for a 10.

Counting on your opponent to inform you when he breaks a rule is like expecting him to make fun of his own haircut.

Nonchalant putts count the same as chalant putts.

It's not a gimme if you're still away.

The shortest distance between any two points on a golf course is a straight line that passes directly through the center of a very large tree.

There are two kinds of bounces; unfair bounces and bounces just the way you meant to play it.

You can hit a two acre fairway 10% of the time and a two inch branch 90% of the time.

If you really want to get better at golf, go back and take it up at a much earlier age.

Since bad shots come in groups of three, a fourth bad shot is actually the beginning of the next group of three.

When you look up, causing an awful shot, you will always look down again at exactly the moment when you ought to start watching the ball if you ever want to see it again.

Every time a golfer makes a birdie, he must subsequently make two triple bogeys to restore the fundamental equilibrium of the universe.

If you want to hit a 7 iron as far as Tiger Woods does, simply try to lay up just short of a water hazard.

There are two things you can learn by stopping your back-swing at the top and checking the position of your hands: how many hands you have, and which one is wearing the glove.

Hazards attract; fairways repel.

You can put a draw on the ball, you can put a fade on the ball, but no golfer can put a straight on the ball.

A ball you can see in the rough from 50 yards away is not yours.

If there is a ball on the fringe and a ball in the bunker, your ball is in the bunker. If both balls are in the bunker, yours is in the footprint.

It's easier to get up at 6:00 AM to play golf than at 10:00 to mow the yard.

Sometimes it seems as though your cup moveth over.

A good drive on the 18th hole has stopped many a golfer from giving up the game.

Golf is the perfect thing to do on Sunday because you always end up having to pray a lot.

A good golf partner is one who's always slightly worse than you are...that's why I get so many calls to play with friends.

That rake by the sand trap is there for golfers who feel guilty about skipping out on lawn work.

If there's a storm rolling in, you'll be having the game of your life.

Golf balls are like eggs. They're white. They're sold by the dozen. And you need to buy fresh ones each week.

A pro-shop gets its name from the fact that you have to have the income of a professional golfer to buy anything in there.

It's amazing how a golfer who never helps out around the house will replace his divots, repair his ball marks, and rake his sand traps.

If your opponent has trouble remembering whether he shot a six or a seven, he probably shot an eight (or worse).

You probably wouldn't look good in a green jacket anyway! A sweatshirt will do just fine.

It takes longer to learn to be a good golfer than it does to become a brain surgeon. On the other hand, you don't get to ride around on a cart, drink beer, eat hot dogs and fart if you are performing brain surgery.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Since my $1,200 Nikon won't work right on stars I tuned up my other astrostuff tonight to see if I could split a few double stars with my $79 Philips Toucam Pro webcam and my 8" Celestron telescope.

Our own Sun being a notable exception, most stars are double stars, or even double doubles. The bright star Rigel lives about 770 light years from your bedroom and you probably know it as the right foot of the hunter Orion.

Rigel is the sixth brightest star in the sky, is a noted double and its B companion is clearly evident in this nice image taken from my deck tonight. About 400 1/50th-sec movie images were stacked in freeware RegiStax.

We are looking at the way the star appeared at about the time of the signing of the Magna Carta. Splitting this duo is the equivalent of being able to read the title of this page from three football fields away.

Monday, February 16, 2009

At first glance this picture of Venus, taken in Pinehurst, doesn't look like anything to get excited about...except that this is about as good as Earth-based photos ever get because of the planet's heavy cloud cover. And this picture was not taken with my telescope but with my Nikon Coolpix at full optical zoom (about 270 mm).

When Venus is nearest to the Earth it always appears as a crescent, as shown. When it is fully illuminated it is always much farther away and appears much smaller.

This was four separate images, stacked and combined in the freeware program RegiStax.